paint it purple

“The greatest of tyrannies are all… based on the postulate that there should never be any sin.”  — Thomas Merton

Merton lost his only brother to World War II (his only family left).  I can only think of Hitler’s WWII genocide of the Jews when reading this quote, because I believe Hitler thought ‘there should never be any sin’ (and the Jews were social evolution’s sinners).

I had another friend in the church “fall,” which is a fancy way of saying, “Oh my, you mean there are actually sinners in the church?  I am appalled!” 

Imagine a hospital that only treats minor bumps and bruises, skinned knees and the occasional splinter.  This hospital is held up as a great healing center.  Then into the ER comes a gunshot gut-wound victim:  “What is this person doing here?  We don’t allow this sort of thing in here!”  That’s the church… pedestrian sins are “treatable” — sins like fibbing, speeding, cursing, watching TVMA.  But in rolls a freshly found out pedophile, adulterer, or pornographer… and “Oh my God!  What are they doing here?”  Like the church has no idea what a real red-meat-eating sinner looks like.  Take a look around people:  the real red-meat-eating sinners were already here, hiding behind sweet “I-wanna-be” worship lyrics and superficial pleasantries. 

The great benefit of real sinners being found out in the church is that there is at least a fantastic chance that this person will be held accountable, judged appropriately, forgiven but not let off the hook and  slowly and effectively transformed into a more real human being.  As one of my good friends, who takes care of healing adulterers in our community, recently commented, “The couples who’ve been through adultery are now more relationally healthy than me!” 

The other great benefit of real sinners being found out in the church is that the rest of us might — just might come out of hiding.  The church isn’t famous for having no sinners, but rather famous for only having honest sinners who repent and heal and take a very arduous long journey of truth-telling, accountability, anger, grief, guilt, alienation, embrace…  What makes a faith community great is their dogged tenacious commitment to each other — not their saintliness.  I wish the news media understood this.  (The media believes there should be no sin.)

I just wonder what people do who are sinners and do not belong to a real authentic community of fellow sinners.  Maybe they hide and fake it, and they become tyrants just like the group of saints who kicked them out of their “church.” 

Still… I only slept two hours last night.  This is painful. 

Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!